


Red Overalls

by drunkenRabbit



Category: The Wolf Among Us
Genre: Gen, too many to name - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-03-21 14:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13742661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunkenRabbit/pseuds/drunkenRabbit
Summary: Harrison Reid, formally known as Little Red Riding Hood, always wanted to thank Bigby for what he did.Now that she has her chance, will she take it?//UNDER CONSTRUCTION : BE AWARE OF MAJOR/MINOR EDITS//





	1. Those Two Words

The story of Little Red Riding Hood had past through the minds of both old and new. Those who lived next door to her family and even those who lived miles away thought of nothing but of the girl who ended the reign of the Big Bad Wolf. Some felt pride with hearing that the little girl in red bested the bane of their existence. Some felt pity for the youth, knowing that paranoia would soon overcome her as it did with them. All were to ignorant to see that such a happy affair could end in such heartbreak.

On the eve of that noteworthy day, Harrison Reid promised her mother on her incoming trip that she’d come back in one piece. She was just a child, her mother thought. The whole situation felt nauseous for both mother and daughter, both knowing that the beady eyes of dread hung tightly upon their heads.

Her mother had noticed the fresh wounds along her body when Reid crawled back but failed to realize the severity of the cuts. They weren’t that of claws; they were of teeth. Despite this, Reid’s mother saw the cuts as nothing more than cuts and patched them up within the hour. Within the next, Reid succumbed to her wounds and left her mother childless once again.

Reid had died from naught of pain or the deepness of the cut, but of the disease known as lycanthropy. It had festered too quickly throughout the child’s system which caused Reid’s blood pressure to skyrocket. Her body couldn’t handle the painful transformation, too frail and too young to be able to carry the weight that burden.

The story of Little Red Riding Hood had ended and with it a new chapter began anew for the troubled youth. Even as her body decomposed the lycanthropy still spread. It finally finished it’s infliction when the last clump of dirt had covered the first citizen and future gatekeeper of **Newshire Town Cemetery**.

Though as she laid upon the graves of both poor and wealthy, Reid knew that the beast that had turned her into this vessel of divine protection was still out there. She would always smell him, lurking within the shadows of her home but never daring to pass through it. She wanted him to show himself, if only for a minute, just to say the two words that had sunken themselves into her since the start of her new life.

Just to say: **Thank you**.


	2. An Unpleasant Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mild cursing and gore but come on, what's new in Fabletown?

Fabletown was cold as usual. Busted street lamps flickered every other block while pieces of the day’s newspaper rushed across the trash covered streets. Reid walked down the broken sidewalk with one hand in her pocket while the other grasped tightly on a bag stock full of trashy romance vhs tapes. Cerberus had pegged the black dog for weeks to pick up some copies, insisting that it’ll help them out in the long run.

Reid didn’t believe such promises but at the sight of two chocolate covered orbs staring down at her, quivering with hope, there was no other option than to go along with it. So after a whole hour of browsing around for moderately decent looking films, Reid trotted her way back to the funeral home in silence. A surge of anxiety ran up her throat and pounded inside her ears. She knew she had forgot something; her walkman.

She’d tried to walk around the city without any headphones before but the constant shouts, screeches and the like proved too much for her timid ears. Tonight proved to be louder than most with piercing voices smashing against the inside of Reid’s skull. She hoped whatever argument was occurring would quickly end and leave her alone.

After a few more choice words, the yelling died with one final slam of a door. Reid exhaled deeply as her ears twitched to the new found silence.

“Fuckin’ screw off! Dumb _bidch_!”

The scent of strong alcoholic musk suddenly filled the air. Reid turned her head and discovered a man, most likely having drank more than his fair share of alcohol, swaying side to side. He twisted and turned, finally leaning on the side of an old, rundown bus station. The man looked towards Reid and his eyebrows narrowed.

“Hey! Ash-hole! Tha fuk you lookin’ at?”

Reid recognized his face in a instance and instinctively turned around. Her shoulders scrunched upwards and the grip around the plastic bag tightened.

“Wait, you’re tha funeral dog, huh? Another fuckin’ mutt in this shit of a town! What a fuckin’ miracle”

Reid walked faster, knowing for a fact that she’d be beaten into a pulp if she were to stop now. The Woodsman was never a friendly figure to Reid even when he had saved her all those years ago. She knew he was there to steal from her grandmother, that was an abject fact. So was that he used Reid as a human shield when defending her from the wolf.

“ _Sonofabitch_! Look at me when I’m talkin’ to you! Don't you know who I am?” The Woodsman had managed to sober up enough to grasp Reid’s shoulder, squeezing it enough to form a bruise. Reid instinctively grabbed a hold of Woody’s wrist and squeezed it herself.

“Let go of me or I’ll make you.”

“ _Ooh_ ~ Acting all tough, little pup? Bare your teeth then,” Woody said,” or are you just another bitch of a― _argh_!”

Woody stumbled away from Reid, grasping at the bone that poked out from his wrist. He grunted and with a strained smile, cracked the bone back into place. Reid inwardly gaged at how nonchalant the action was.

“Come on, dog!”

Woody charged forward with his outstretched from his torso. Reid threw the bag of tapes to one side as she quickly darted into the other, nearly missing Woody’s attempt at a grapple. She twisted her waist around and ended up in the middle of the sidewalk again, right behind Woody. Reid jumped upon the former lumberjack’s back with her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. The world had already been spinning enough for Reid but as Woody grasped a hold of her arms and slammed her on the pavement below face first, the natural order of space and time had nothing on the lack of control Reid was currently going through.

Woody pulled Reid off the ground by the support of her red locks and threw her on a small flight of stairs next to them. With his legs on both sides of her waist, Woody took hold of Reid’s neck and shook it violently.

“You’re as stubborn as that sheriff, Hound of Baskerville, you know that? I know that fight must be in you somewhere, dog! I’ll find it even if I have to beat it out of you!”

A punched landed perfectly on Reid’s eye, causing a blood cell to pop. The stinging, although painful, helped Reid regain the senses that she’d lost from the fall.

“F-fuck you,” Reid choked. In one final attempt to get the crazed drunk off her, Reid chopped down on Woody’s shoulder.

A loud cry erupted from his lips, causing him to release his grip on Reid; but she still hung on to his shoulder. Even has Woody arose from the staircase, Reid latched onto him like a bear-trap. He thrashed all around, even getting Reid to position herself on his back, but still couldn’t escape the steel grip she held on him.

As a last effort, Woody rammed his back against the brick wall beside him. Reid grunted as continued her assault with no pause for breath. Finally the Woodsman began to simmer down; both from blood loss and exhaustion. Reid herself felt short winded, the grip of her jaw slowly releasing.

“Y-you should know better than to finish stuff half-assed wolf,” Woody slurred. Taking the small opening, Woody gathered the remainder of his strength and fligged Reid away from him. She landed with a crack against the bottom of a broken street lamp.

“You’re― _huff_ ― mine now you piece of―,” a loud grunt fell from Woody’s lips followed by an even louder thud. Reid’s one unharmed eye widened at the man standing before her and Woody.

“You alright, kid?”

It was **him** , Reid realized. It was the Sheriff. 


	3. Lump In Your Throat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reid was so close, yet so far.

Reid shuffled herself towards the staircase with Bigby as her guide. The whole situation felt too surreal for her. She would’ve never thought she’d see him again this way, but then again fate doesn’t always show up late to the party for no apparent reason.

Bigby gave her a once over, his brows furrowing.

“You look pretty beat up. Did he―.”

“Just a couple of scratches, nothing to worry about Sheriff.”

It didn’t take a master detective to figure out the lie Reid was beginning to spin. Bigby exhaled and looked off to the side, his eyes becoming lock onto something. He went away from Reid for a minute and bent down next to the staircase.

“These your tapes?” 

“They’re for a friend.”

They shifted in there spots for a moment. The two never really talked to one another, only giving acknowledging glances here and there back in the Homelands.

“What really happened, Baskerville? I know you’re not― _comfortable_ with fighting.”

Reid sighed, though not from Bigby digging around for answers. If it were to have been Sherlock Holmes asking such questions, this whole conversation would’ve taken an immediate turn. The fact that Bigby continued to call her _Baskerville_ sent shivers down her spine.

“He was drunk. Saw me, yelled a couple of things, and decided to tussle. Nothing you should worry about, Sheriff.”

Bigby’s brows furrowed a bit more as he reached down to pull a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Sliding one in his mouth, he flicked open his lighter and puffed out a large cloud of smoke. It streamlined from the air down to Reid’s face, encircling inside her nose.

Raising her head a little, Reid sniffed the air and a wave of relaxation hit. The brand was shitty, no doubt about that, but the smoke helped ease the earlier tension. 

“You know, I bet you’re the only one that calls me ‘Sheriff’ and literally means _Sheriff_. Not as some hidden meaning to tell me to fuck off.” 

“I-,” Reid took a small breath,” I’ve got a lot of respect for you, Sheriff.”

“You do? Don’t hear those words much,” Bigby mumbled. He looked at Reid, a soft smile shrugging on his lips,” thanks.”

Reid nodded. Her eyes wander from the ground towards the cigarette in Bigby’s mouth, then back on the ground again.

“You want one? I can tell you’ve relax a bit since I lit this one.”

“I’ve never smoked before. I don’t even know how to light one let alone _hold_ one.”

Bigby chuckled at that and dug through his pocket again for the familiar pack of _Huff ‘n Puffs_. He plucked a cigarette from it’s shelter, lit it and held it out to Reid, dangling it between his fingers. Reid eyed the roll of smokey tobacco before taking it. Her eyebrows rose and lowered, a mix of emotions flowing through her like that of water in a drain pipe. She curled her lips around the yellow piece of the cigarette and allowed a small puff to trickle down her throat. The small embers burned as they flew down towards her lungs. To any normal person, maybe a mundy, an older man offering a cigarette to that of a ‘teenage’ girl would be considered inappropriate.

But they both were old, tired and frankly, no one in their right mind would have the balls walk up to them so late at night.

Reid let a loud cough, promptly covering her mouth with the crook of her arm. She glanced over at Bigby and watched as he maneuvered the cigarette from his mouth to in between his fingers with ease. He tapped it lightly with his thumb, little specks of ash falling to the ground as he did.

“You get used to the sting after a while.”

“I can’t smell shit.”

“That’s why I like them. You can’t tell me you don’t get nuts smelling all the shit in this town, let alone this street?”

Reid shook her head and gestured to her ears.

“My nose sucks so what I lack in scent, I make up in hearing. I don’t usually leave the house without my walkman. ‘Can’t stand hearing every little bump in the night.”

Bigby nodded, most likely agreeing with how obnoxious the noises could get at night.

“I better head out. Take care of yourself, Baskerville.”

Reid stared at Bigby as he rose from the staircase, eyeing each wrinkle that stretched and shrunk as he moved. An unpleasantness bubbled inside Reid’s stomach while she looked at the retreating wolf’s form. She, with the poor excuse for confidence she had, shot up from her spot on the stairs.

“B-Bigby!”

He stopped and turned his head just enough to see from the corner of his eye.

“Thank you,” Reid stammered out. She saw Bigby’s eyebrows raise and began to panic,”―for the cigarette! And for Woody. Thanks.”

Bigby nodded and turned back around, leaving Reid right back where she started; alone. The cigarette she held in her mouth crinkled as she gritted her teeth. That wasn’t what she wanted to say and it’d be embarrassing to try again.

Reid combed a hand through the red heap of hair on her head and blew out a puff of smoke. Turning on her heels, she continued on her path towards the funeral home.

“ _You’re an idiot, Harrison,_ ” Reid thought,” _an absolute dumbass_.”


End file.
